Gamasutra - Male Gaze and Video games

July 2nd, 2012, 00:34

Brandon Sheffield from EIC has written a lengthy editorial on Gamasutra about this issue. He uses the Hitman: Absolution trailer as a foundation for his statement about how women is still being used to show

boobs and butts, not only in games, but within the culture at large, saying this is a natural extension of who we put in charge.

Male Gaze, then, has to do with the relationship between a heterosexual male viewer, and a female that is being viewed. The theory poses that in media like film, photography, and I would here add games, when a heterosexual male is in charge of the viewing of a female, the resulting media necessarily reflects that male's gaze. In the case of games, this may be more of a collective gaze.